Comment by pgeorgi
2 years ago
Note, their idea[0] of "open source" doesn't match the popular Open Source Definition [1]
[0] https://github.com/anyproto/anytype-kotlin/blob/main/LICENSE...
2 years ago
Note, their idea[0] of "open source" doesn't match the popular Open Source Definition [1]
[0] https://github.com/anyproto/anytype-kotlin/blob/main/LICENSE...
A lot of the comments to this are angry and I can appreciate that. There is obviously some specific nuance to "open source" that individuals in this thread want to maintain and feel that the OSI has enshrined in stone as a definition that no one shall breach.
However, I strongly support the kind of license (in principle) that this software is released under. Source code is available for anyone to inspect, modify for their own use, contribute to, run locally for their own benefit. The main restriction is so clearly obvious: you can't create a commercial competitor. You can't take their code and with minimal effort or minor changes create a competing app and sell it to others.
This to me seems like a completely sane license. So common in fact that creative commons asks two basic questions when they recommend a license: "Allow adaptations of your work to be shared?" and "Allow commercial uses of your work?". In fact, they differentiate this difference with the moniker "Free cultural works" [1] (those that allow commercial use are termed "free").
I'd like to see the same nuance in software licenses. A difference between "open" and "free". That way, we can avoid this bickering in the comments where those who really want completely free software (free from all restrictions including those against commercial use) won't jump down the throats of those who want to open up their source while protecting themselves from competing commercial use.
1. https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/fr...
This isn’t bickering. These definitions have existed for literal decades. There are multiple models for making source code available, and people can choose what license they want. But this isn’t open source. This is source available, free (as in beer, kinda) license.
You don’t have to pay, and you can see the source code. But, in my quick reading, I don’t think you can make modifications, distribute modifications, distribute unmodified versions, and there is a restriction on how you use the software (non-commercial only).
This is the same type of license Microsoft gave certain large (TLA) customers for Windows, IIRC. I believe they called it “shared source,” as in they shared a copy of the source with you, but you couldn’t use the source for more than review. No one would claim that was open source.
There are differences between free, open, and available. This is only the later. No one cares about what license something is available through. Authors get to do whatever they want. People only care when you try to claim one thing, but it is really something else. In this case, the company is trying to use the term “open source” as a selling point of their software, when it isn’t. This license doesn’t even match the definitions they use on their own site!
I’m happy the authors want to make it possible to audit their software. That’s a laudable goal. If they want to restrict usage of the source code to non-commercial use, that’s fine and up to them. Just don’t call it “open source”.
Just because something is free doesn’t make it open. And just because something is open doesn’t make it free (as in freedom or beer). Similarly, just because something auditable and available, doesn’t make it free or open.
The fact that the authors don’t know the difference (or are potentially misrepresenting the difference) will only make the community mad - especially the part of the community that would care about seeing the source code in the first place. If they instead were marketing the project as “source available” for auditing or non-commercial use, this wouldn’t have been an issue.
Your first points: "can’t make modifications, distribute modifications, distribute unmodified versions" appears to contradict the language from their license file:
> Any Association grants you (“Licensee”) a license to use, modify, and redistribute the Software, but only (a) for Non-Commercial Use, or (b) for Commercial Use in Allowed Networks.
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I think the issue is that they say "open source!" with no further qualification. That's misleading and disingenuous.
I support the use of alternative business models like source available, Business Source License etc. That's fine. But you should accurately describe your licensing. They should have said "source available".
>The main restriction is so clearly obvious: you can't create a commercial competitor.
I don't see it. Commercial use there is defined as "where the Software facilitates any transaction of economic value other than on Allowed Networks". As I understand, it means financial application.
When will VC companies stop conflating source available with open source? It's even worse than just being closed source as it's trying to pander to a group for money, and without any respect to the actual values of what they are saying.
Our philosophy surrounding open-source is uncomplicated and clear. All essential protocols and data formats are subject to the MIT license. However, considering our clients' needs and with the MongoDB situation as a reference, we must maintain some degree of defensibility.
Our objective is to foster a collaborative atmosphere, co-creating with the community. The size of the community matters to us; when it reaches a significant scale, we want to make collective decisions regarding licensing, reflecting a democratic approach.
Antype, a creation of our non-profit organization, is aimed at sustainability rather than becoming another digital ghost. Our mission isn't simply to exist, but to thrive and make meaningful contributions to the open-source landscape. By intertwining our growth with that of our community, we're setting the stage for a sustainable future.
These are all noble goals, and I don't think many commenters here are arguing that they're not justified. Just that the specific use of the term "open source" is incorrectly applied (to your own benefit).
If a subset of things you do are open source, that's great. Say that.
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Your goals sound laudable, but they do not alter the fact that your use of the term “open source” is, deliberately or otherwise, misleading.
> Our philosophy surrounding open-source is uncomplicated and clear.
It does not appear to be the case that your philosophy surrounding open-source is clear. You state very clearly, without caveats, that the product is open-source, which strongly implies that the product is, well, open-source without caveats – and this is not the case. That feels rather disingenuous, if not deliberately dishonest.
It is not unlike printer manufactures loudly proclaiming a page-per-minute value without any note about that rate is only attainable feeding entirely blank A6 sheets out of the device.
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Are you seriously trying to suggest that source code being publicly accessible is worse than nobody being able to access it? What a ridiculous statement.
You are intentionally misrepresenting OP.
> When will VC companies stop *conflating source available with open source*?
*Misrepresenting* "open source" is the problem. "source available" is the correct phrase
It was worse in the case of early BIOS, which IBM made public in an instruction manual while keeping all relevant rights on distribution. I wonder why they did not publish it with a GPL or AGPL license, where they would keep commercial use to themselves.
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You should be always skeptic but when someone write "Pure transparency — trust our code, not our words" in an EXTRA BIG font, you should be extra skeptic.
(co-founder of anytype) our main promises are privacy, end-to-end encryption, user controlled keys, self-hosting, p2p sync - all of which should add up to what we can user autonomy from the software provider which we believe to be important. To prove these claims the best way is open the source code. As promises of encryption and ownership stay promises unless you can be sure of it. That was one main motivation and why we think it's worth highlighting.
So I see the networking portions of the code are Free Software - that's great. How are people expected to use it if their use does not fall under "non-commercial use" as defined in the client license? Do you expect people to write their own clients for commercial use, or do you offer commercial licenses?
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Is there a way to make sure I am using the code you published and not a different version?
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The conventional open source model makes everything free labor for billion dollar companies and hustlers who just take it and slap it up behind a paywall. It's used to underpin SaaS models that are significantly less open or free than closed-source local commercial software.
It'd be nice if the OSI or the open source community addressed this issue head-on, but so far they refuse and insist nothing is wrong. This refusal leads to a proliferation of almost-open-source licenses that just muddy the waters.
If they continue to refuse I think we'll see more and more of this until the definition of open source becomes hopelessly muddy and the whole community starts to wither.
Hence why the "free" in "Free and Open Source Software" really matters. :)
Not really, someone could just use that misleadingly too, just as with "open source".
"Open Source" already doesn't cover these special licenses, instead, the "source available" is used. Any also acknowledges this actually - the license they are using is called the "Any Source Available License 1.0".
After a bit of brushing up on my acronyms, one could indeed use FOSS or FLOSS to denote that a piece of software is either free (or libre) or just open source [0].
The term "open source" is not referring to software with a free license, but to software whose source code is available to the public irrespective of license [1].
[0] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/floss-and-foss.en.html
[1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....
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Damn, didn't even think about that.
So what is the appropriate term then for "source code freely available, but cannot be used for commercial use?"
I guess probably an unpopular opinion here, but I don't see why "open source" must imply that anyone should be allowed to fork the repo and sell it.
Source available does sadly not really mean that much. Just means the source code is available. MIT licensed code and code you can see but are not allowed to use can be described as source available. That is what https://faircode.io/ got created for to solve.
Background: https://github.com/n8n-io/n8n/issues/40
> I guess probably an unpopular opinion here, but I don't see why "open source" must imply that anyone should be allowed to fork the repo and sell it.
Because that is the definition of "Open Source"[0]. As was already said, "source available" is the correct term here.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Source_Definition
Sorry but this is not the definition of "open source", I would argue there is only a conceptual and cultural definition of "open source". What you are linking to is The Open Source Initiative (OSI) Foundation's declaration called the "Open Source Definition".
They are a single organization, that have done a tremendous job at trying to come up with a global and shared legal framework to which people can license code under. They have gone so far to come up with a pretty good definition of "open source", but not the definition.
This would be equivalent to saying that "Freedom" is defined by the US Constitution or the Canadian Charter of Rights & Freedoms. It is not, those are both examples of a legal definition of freedom, but neither are the sole authority for the global and cultural concept of "Freedom"
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Source Available.
> I don't see why "open source" must imply that anyone should be allowed to fork the repo
Apart from 20+ years of historical use in that way?
You're completely misrepresenting my quote by cutting off the "and sell it" at the end, that's incredibly disingenuous.
MIT license restrict commercialization. Is the MIT license not open source then?
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It's not freely available, it's available for a limited set of uses. So it's not open source.
Co-founder of anytype is here. The most of are repos are fully open-source. We have our philosophy regarding open source here https://blog.anytype.io/our-open-philosophy/ Happy to discuss concerns regarding our approach.
Using the term Open Source for a product when most of the code is under a license that isn’t Open Source feels dishonest to me. The product you build is certainly yours to release however you see fit, but if I’m looking for open source software and I find this I’m going to be extremely skeptical of everything you say.
On top of that, the license itself is actually incredibly restrictive. I’m not a lawyer, but my read of the section on economic value seems very broad:
> does not include uses where the Software facilitates any transaction of economic value other than on Allowed Networks.
My read of “facilitates any transaction of economic value” means that I would be in violation if I used this to keep track of trading cards, made a grocery list, or tried to keep track of what I want to buy my friends for their birthdays. At least it would if I installed this on my home server and accessed it from the couch on mh phone.
Thank you the comment, it's clear that licence is not clear and we need to improve. Our idea is straightforward: if you want to use the software, you can do so for free, whether for personal use or within an organization. However, if you aim to sell it for profit, you need to contribute to its creation in some way; this is why permission is required. At least, that's the case at this early stage.
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The problem is that proprietary licenses (such as Source Available) are viral: whatever they touch becomes proprietary.
As such, "most repos are open source" (from what I can see: MIT, some forked ones Apache 2.0) is nice, but the end product still isn't open source according to OSD.
There are people who value using "Open Source" for OSD-compliant licenses only (I tend to agree with that notion to keep things clear), but I didn't really want to discuss this: It's your project, after all, license as you wish.
I just wanted to provide a heads-up that the use of "open source" in the header here (and the front page on your site) doesn't match the expectations of a bunch of folks, so they know whether to look closer or not based on that.
I see how making the entire situation transparent muddies the message, but "Everything is Source Available, many parts are Open Source" would already clear things up a lot.
Yep it's clear, you are right!
I was going to come here and post about how this is exactly what I've been looking for, but then I read this.
So, my kneejerk reaction to this deceptive use of open source is to just say "no" and move on. However, I read through your philosphy, and I have a question.
> considering the substantial R&D resources required for the application layer, we believe that businesses and networks utilizing our software for commercial purposes should contribute towards its ongoing development, allowing maintainers to support and enhance the platform.
That seems to be the crux of the concern here. I can respect that. So, why do existing open source licenses not suit you? For example, you could release the software under the AGPL, and still dual-license it as you wish.
Rather than assume bad faith, I'm going to give you the chance to correct yourself. At the very least, calling yourself open source at the moment is deceptive, whether you realize it or not.
The most of are repost are open-sourced with MIT licence. It's clear now, that the way we put words together in the license for clients is not clear. Our idea is straightforward: if you want to use the software, you can do so for free, whether for personal use or within an organization. However, if you aim to sell it for profit(like change the logo and put price tag on it), you need to contribute to its creation in some way; this is why permission is required. At least, that's the case at this early stage.
I don't see the problem with using Anytype License instead of AGPL. AGPL allows commercial use as long as the source code is provided, while Anytype disallows commercial use. Other than that it is the same, and is "open source" regardless. As in, OSI doesn't trademark "open source".
You deny your users the most basic freedom there is, the freedom to use your software for any purpose without discrimination. This is wrong, and so is your attempt to misuse and redefine the term "open source software".
This is the second time today that someone mistakes open source and free software.
See: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....
I don't blame you, it's a bit schadenfreude on my part because "open source" companies try to dress as free software but aren't
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> This is wrong
This is a highly subjective take - it might be better to stick to objective dictionary definitions.
This project clearly isn't open source, & shouldn't be advertised as such, but on the other hand the intent here is a common/popular one these days, & its not the first of its kind: I'm surprised no-one has yet coined a term for this relatively new breed of "faux-pen source" or whatever it is.
Fwiw I do think it has it's place - it's certainly more than preferable to all rights reserved.
Our idea is straightforward: if you want to use the software, you can do so for free, whether for personal use or within an organization. However, if you aim to sell it for profit, you need to contribute to its creation in some way; this is why permission is required. At least, that's the case at this early stage.
You used the word "fully", which means part of them isn't fully open source. :(